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Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.

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The Lady and Her Jewels: An Epiphany Meditation

And a great portent appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars; she was with child and she cried out in her pangs of birth, in anguish for delivery (Revelation 12:1-2). Then Joshua spoke…

by Richard BledsoeJanuary 6, 2015
extreme-unction
Anointing

Fattening Our Suffering

In his post asking Ought we Anoint the Dying? Peter Leithart makes an excellent and important point about our suffering as members of Christ. However, he only parenthetically mentions that the verb in question in James 5 is not chrio but aleipho . By assuming that these words are interchangeable,…

by Robert MaddoxDecember 30, 2014
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James

Death as Frenemy

We spend a lot of time in the church talking about what it means to live like a Christian. But what does it mean to die like a Christian? If we are to follow Christ in life, what does it mean for us to follow him in death as well?…

by Rich LuskDecember 23, 2014
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Literature

Was Shakespeare A Christian?

How would one go about answering the question posed by my title? That depends on what the question means. Obviously, different definitions of the question would require different approaches to an answer. Right off hand, I can think of at least three possible — though not necessarily mutually exclusive —…

by Ralph Allan SmithDecember 23, 2014
day-2-ferguson-protests-nationwide
American Culture

Phobophobia

In recent weeks and months, we have seen events that are not the event. The drama around these events is not the events themselves, but the anxiety about the events, and then even the anxiety about the anxiety about the events. That is the real event. The events in Ferguson,…

by Richard BledsoeDecember 22, 2014
anointing-david
Anointing

Ought We Anoint the Dying?

Anointing the sick, including the dying, is one of the traditional seven sacraments of the Catholic Church. The Reformers denied that the rite qualified as a sacrament. Formally, this was because anointing did not have a direct authorization from Jesus; more theologically, it was not one of the marks that…

by Peter LeithartDecember 18, 2014

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Theology

Practical preaching

In his history of Protestant theology in the 19th century, Barth lists some of the sermon topics of one Traugott Gunther Roller of Schonfels in Kur-Saxony: Fourth Sunday after Epiphany: The Duties of a Christian Congregation saved from the Grave Risk of Fire. Easter: Reasonable Rules for the Christian Burial…

July 12, 2007
Theology

Whose questions?

Bediako neatly describes the dualism that results when the church attempts to apply the questions and answers of European or American Christianity to Africa without addressing the questions of Africans themselves. He quotes John Taylor’s pointed question: “if Christ were to appear as the answer to the questions that Africans…

July 11, 2007
Theology

Against Theology

Bediako criticizes other African theologians who claim that there is no African theological tradition. There is, he admits, not much if we’re looking for school theology. But focusing on that lack misses the real action - the “grassroots” theology expressed in songs, worship, sermons, personal evangelism, etc. And this is…

July 11, 2007

Christos kurios

One of Afua Kuma’s hymns to Jesus describes Him as an arriving hero: “Children rush to meet Him crowds of young people rush about to make Him welcome. Chief of young women: they have strung a necklace of gold nuggets and beads and hung it around Your neck so we…

July 11, 2007

Jesus of the Deep Forest

In the songs and praises of the illiterate Ghanian Christian, Christina Afua Gyan (or Afua Kuma), Jesus is described as a powerful Protector in a world teeming with dangers. “Should the devil himself become a lion and chase us as his prey, we shall have no fear Lamb of God!…

July 11, 2007
Theology

Good/evil or finite/infinite

What Milbank describes as “postmodern Kantianism” (in Zizek, Nancy, and others) wants to take evil seriously, which means “positively.” They do not think Augustine’s theory adequately accounts for modern evil, complaining that the Augustinian account’s weakness left Europe open to the possibility of radical evil. Milbank suggests on the contrary…

July 11, 2007

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